1. Corporate Social Responsibility 1
Introduction

2. What is CSR about?
Corporate
Social (and environmental)
Responsibility

3. What is CSR about? EU Commission:
“a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis” – COM(2001) 366
“Corporate social responsibility concerns actions by companies over and above their legal obligations towards society and the environment.” – COM(2011) 681

4. Origin: spectacular cases
Involvement in coups in Latin America
Industrial accidents
Bhopal, Ali Enterprises (Karachi), Rana Plaza (Dhaka)
Continuous degradation of the environment
Shell, Texaco
Sweat shops
Foxcomm

5. Why leaving it to the corporations?
State regulation vs. Private regulation
Large body of environmental law, labour law etc. at the national level
Tensions with purely economic approaches
Welfare through trickle-down effects
Allegedly higher flexibility of private regulation

6. Limitations to public law regulation
Starting point
The multinational company
Its legal structure: Legal independence of the subsidiaries
Its economic and political power
Public international law
The territorial principle
The nationality principle

7. Limitations to public law regulation
The host states
Limited experience with regulation
Competition between host states for investment
Corruption

8. Limitations to public law regulation
The home state of the MNC
No jurisdiction over the subsidiaries
Regulation of the behaviour of the parent company in relation to its subsidiaries
Which could, however, clash with the regulatory powers of the host states
Limited political will to engage with the behaviour of multinational corporations abroad
Market ideology
Failed legislative activities

9. Limitations to public law regulation
International organisations
Predominance of free market ideology over social concerns
Leading role of the WTO

10. Why do corporations engage in CSR?
Idealistic interests
Legal requirements?
Not yet formally established
Increasingly: reporting requirements
Marketing interests
CSR is used in advertising to consumers and / or traders
CSR may be useful or necessary in tenders of public authorities

11. Typology of CSR Instruments 1
Internal regulation
Handbooks
Supply chain management
External communication
Websites and the like
Published codes of conduct

12. Typology of CSR Instruments 2
Unilateral
“our philosophy” ...
Codes of conduct of business associations
Agreements with environmental associations or trade unions
Adherence to an international or state-based system
E.g. the Global Compact

13. Typology of CSR Instruments 3
Reference to (otherwise inapplicable) principles
Human rights
No double standards
‘International standards of CSR’
Self-developed standards

14. CSR and the law
CSR is voluntary by nature
However, …